Belarus bars the way for corruption

An unorthodox way of fighting corruption is being tested in Belarus. Prosecutors in the country’s capital have taken officials on a trip to a detention facility to demonstrate what awaits those who break the laws.

Agriculture ministry staff were the first “victims” of the experiment, reports Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in Belarus.

Despite being shown the “best” cells, they were nevertheless quite impressed by how “small, overcrowded and smelly” they were.

To fully drive the point home, the head of the detention facility noted that in some cells, prisoners even have to take turns to sleep because there is not enough room for all the inmates.

He reinforced that the trip was not meant to scare the officials, but to show them reality.

The paper reports that the unwitting tourists seemed interested and had a lot of questions, but were reluctant to enter the cells, preferring to observe the inmates through the peephole.

The idea to organize such excursions was voiced by the country’s prosecutor general several months ago. According to him, the trips are initially planned for heads of the institutions most liable to participate in corruption.